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Saturday, March 6, 2010

How I Found the Perfect Dress by Maryrose Wood

Spoilers for HIFTPD and WILMHGO.

Title: How I Found the Perfect DressAuthor: Maryrose WoodYear of Publication: 2008Genre: YA, fantasy (faerie)Pages: 231First Line: "'Tinker Bell pajamas!' My sister Tammy was the happiest girl in the world."Summary: I had the most unbelievable summer. On a bike tour of Ireland, I fell head over handlebars for the hunky guide, Colin, and -- oh, yeah -- magically discovered that I'm a half-goddess. Then it was back to my painfully normal life -- and my relationship with Colin fizzled to the occasional e-mail -- until he wrote saying he was coming here!

But Colin's arrival is not so magical -- the poor guy's exhausted. It seems that when I found my goddess mojo, a spell was cast on Colin. In his dreams he's forced to dance till dawn with the faeries, who want to boogie for an eternity. If I don't break the enchantment somehow, the prom I've been dreaming of will be Colin's worst nightmare. Look out, faeries, Colin's next dance is with me!

Source: Back of book

Review: Like many sequels, this wasn't as good as the original. Characters aren't in-character, there is a BEGIN SPOILER major mistake In the original, Why I Let My Hair Grow Out, Morgan says her birthday is on June 3 (see page 141 of the book), but HIFTPD reminds the readers, like, every other page that her birthday is March 20 (which is also my cousin's birthday and the first day of spring). I understand it's difficult to keep stuff straight -- I write too, so really, I get it. But a detail as important as this, especially if you're going to mention it a gazillion times in the second book should really be checked. And it would've been perfectly reasonable to have a prom on June 3. So I don't know what that was all about. END SPOILER And I really missed the characters of the first book. The plot wasn't quite as good, but it was okay. Still, the whole Colin this is pretty sweet. The first book seemed more mature to me, as well. While I preferred the first one, I still plan on reading the third book.

Worst part: As the climax wasn't up to par in the first book, HIFTPD was lacking in the climax and end. Plus the change in everyone was annoying. Plus the thing mentioned under the cut.

Best part: Still Colin. *giggles*

Grade: B

Other Books by This Author:Why I Let My Hair Grow Out (the prequel to HIFTPD), and Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love